Drive units for floor trolleys, such as drawbar-steered transport and lifting trolleys, have long been known. They comprise at least one driven and steered wheel attached to a vehicle chassis and able to swivel about an essentially vertical swivel axis. Coaxially with the swivel axis is arranged a drive motor, preferably a three-phase motor. The drive shaft of the motor is in driving connection via a gear system with at least one wheel. To produce a drive unit as compact as possible, the drive motor and gear system are usually accommodated in a common housing consisting essentially of two separate housing portions that can be joined firmly together by mechanical fastening means. This housing is mounted and able to rotate on the chassis of the floor trolley by virtue of a roller bearing (DE 101 30 100 A1, EP 1 285 803 A1).
Furthermore, DE 101 30 100 A1 shows that a steering connection is arranged on the drive motor, by means of which the housing together with the gear system and the wheel connected thereto and the drive motor can be swivelled by virtue of the roller bearing. No further details of the steering connection are disclosed, but conventionally a drawbar is attached to the motor housing.
In contrast, according to EP 1 285 803 A1, the drive shaft projecting upward out of the motor housing can be used to connect a steering fork. In this case too, no further explanatory details are given about how the connection of the steering fork is to be realized in practice.
Against that background, the purpose of the invention is to develop further a drive unit of the type described, in such a manner that compared with those of the prior art it is even more compact, can be assembled with less effort and has a smaller number of individual components as a result of which a saving of production costs can be achieved.